01/01/2009, 01:33 PM
Well, I installed Windows 7 and have been playing around with it for a little over an hour now...
Will be using this thread to narrate my experience with it as I'll use it for about a month/...
* Performed clean install of the 32 bit Windows 7. For some poo poo reason (which I am as of now not sure, whether it was the OS's fault or mine) Vista partition was merged into the Windows.old folder. What that essentially means is that Vista is bye bye!
Noted that it comes with drivers for graphics, network (of course), audio etc. It picked up my 8600 GT immediately, as well as installed drivers for Realtek RTL 8111 Gigabit ethernet and Realtek HD audio. The audio and network are inbuilt with my Gigabyte motherboard. A problem appeared however, when I tried to connect to the net or modify the Audio settings. The net adapter did not connect and the HD audio is basically the basic audio driver. That implies that you need to manually install drivers for your devices. That in itself is a dead end, as no drivers for Win7 have been released. Fortunately, Vista drivers work smoothly, albeit through compatibility mode, which imo, kill the point of using a newer OS. However, this isn't even an official Beta yet, so by the time Win7 hits RTM, this will have been worked out.
Despite the preinstalled drivers, Windows did not automatically assess my computer, and on manually assessing gave me a Windows Experience Score of 3!!! LOL! Vista Ultimate gave me a score of 6!
Drivers aside, I have yet to face any problems or compatibility issues while installing programs. I have successfully installed Office 2007, Photoshop CS4, MagicISO, 7-Zip, Firefox 3 (with its addons), Foobar, GOMPlayer, k-lite and a couple of other programs...
I do note that its is significantly faster than Vista ever was (incl. with its tweaks)... I hope that MS does not screw around with that towards the final release. There are many small tweaks and changes that for better or for worse, change the way people use windows. For instance, Win + E, which would usually give you My Computer (or Computer) now gives Libraries, which houses your Music, Pictures, Videos and Documents.
the biggest relief is that the stupid UAC does not get in the way as it did in Vista. It pops up when installing something, but its more akin to XP than Vista. The continuous pops have been replaced by a icon in the system tray which blink if it has to say something, and can be entirely ignored! Another change is taht connect to network is removed from the Start menu. Instead, now clicking on the icon in the tray brings up the options of which network to connect to. I have always wished for such and I'm glad!
On a Graphical note, it comes with about 5 or 6 themes that you can select. Even the glass has about 16 shades. Everyone by now knows about the taskbar of Windows 7 (its broader and flatter.. looking more sober and stylish and simple). I like the new glow to the Windows logo. What some people don't know is that the minimised windows now don't appear as a tab on the taskbar. Instead, they are now small icons. this frees up the space and looks pretty cool. I like it, but not sure how people will react. But its not obstructive as a mouse over the icons reveals a larger thumbnail preview. Interestingly, multiple windows of same application don't show the number of windows in the icon. The preview thumbnail spreads out to accommodate all the windows. Another feature is that if you take the mouse over the preview thumbnail, all windows 'cept that one become transparent. Think of it as a fullscreen preview. Neat. Oh, also Calculator and Paint have been finally updated...
On a downside, the OS tends to lag occasionally, but I assume that will be limited only in the Beta..
Its only been a couple of hours so haven't really noticed too many bugs yet. Still, a month may show a different story.
Day 2
My Foobar has been the only app that has crashed until now. Haven't gotten to use any demanding software like games or PS. Havent had chance to run any synthetic benchmarks either... (down with fever.. which is good, otherwise I'd be at work).
I found some complain areas though... despite giving options in choosing themes, MS acted like a bitch in not offering options to change Sounds or black Aero cursors. This may happen on later date in the final version, lets hope.
For some reason unknown, I could not share My Music folder between multiple media players (iTunes, foobar and wmp). I am still to figure out why.
Windows 7 comes with Direct X 11, so expect some even more detailed gaming by Dec 2009, which isn't unexpected.
I forgot to mention an interesting feature yesterday. If you drag a window towards to top of the screen, it automatically maximizes!
The control panel has been reworked and is un-clustered. But this has been one of the features that has been marketed, so nothing new there.
Frankly, not much to repart today as I havent really pushed her today!
However, enjoy the screenshots...
screenshots
Day 3
Installed Crysis Warhead and Left4Dead. I had ripped the two from my Original DVDs and compressed them earlier. Extraction time with 7-Zip was not too different from Vista, but can say it was somewhat faster. Just started compressing a 4 GB file with Ultra compression to 7z format. Time indicator suggests about 40 mins against 50-60 mins in Vista. The compression settings are attached below.
[attachment=2468]
Immediately after bootup, Win 7 took about 400 MB - 450 MB of RAM. This is very less compared to above 600 MB taken up by Vista. This explains the overall quickness of the OS. Just looking at the memory consumption, it becomes clear that Win7 will not be anything like Vista.
I am currently downloading PCMarks (Basic) and some other benchmark utilities and will post those score later on.
About the game performance, under vista Left4Dead ran very smoothly. But it still tended to crash. Under Win7, it did not crash but in between the game became very choppy. I don't have fraps intalled yet, but will do so and post those results.
Crysis warhead ran pretty smoothly at native resolution (1440*900) with mainstream effects and no AA.Under Vista I could not run it @ native resoultion, without lowering the graphics specs. So I guess, the extra RAM has worked charms here. However, the real test under Crysis comes once the snow starts, and I have yet to reach there (I'll be rescuing O'Neil shortly). I'm dl'ing COD4 demo (yeah... i know
) and will test with that too...
Will be using this thread to narrate my experience with it as I'll use it for about a month/...
* Performed clean install of the 32 bit Windows 7. For some poo poo reason (which I am as of now not sure, whether it was the OS's fault or mine) Vista partition was merged into the Windows.old folder. What that essentially means is that Vista is bye bye!
Noted that it comes with drivers for graphics, network (of course), audio etc. It picked up my 8600 GT immediately, as well as installed drivers for Realtek RTL 8111 Gigabit ethernet and Realtek HD audio. The audio and network are inbuilt with my Gigabyte motherboard. A problem appeared however, when I tried to connect to the net or modify the Audio settings. The net adapter did not connect and the HD audio is basically the basic audio driver. That implies that you need to manually install drivers for your devices. That in itself is a dead end, as no drivers for Win7 have been released. Fortunately, Vista drivers work smoothly, albeit through compatibility mode, which imo, kill the point of using a newer OS. However, this isn't even an official Beta yet, so by the time Win7 hits RTM, this will have been worked out.
Despite the preinstalled drivers, Windows did not automatically assess my computer, and on manually assessing gave me a Windows Experience Score of 3!!! LOL! Vista Ultimate gave me a score of 6!
Drivers aside, I have yet to face any problems or compatibility issues while installing programs. I have successfully installed Office 2007, Photoshop CS4, MagicISO, 7-Zip, Firefox 3 (with its addons), Foobar, GOMPlayer, k-lite and a couple of other programs...
I do note that its is significantly faster than Vista ever was (incl. with its tweaks)... I hope that MS does not screw around with that towards the final release. There are many small tweaks and changes that for better or for worse, change the way people use windows. For instance, Win + E, which would usually give you My Computer (or Computer) now gives Libraries, which houses your Music, Pictures, Videos and Documents.
the biggest relief is that the stupid UAC does not get in the way as it did in Vista. It pops up when installing something, but its more akin to XP than Vista. The continuous pops have been replaced by a icon in the system tray which blink if it has to say something, and can be entirely ignored! Another change is taht connect to network is removed from the Start menu. Instead, now clicking on the icon in the tray brings up the options of which network to connect to. I have always wished for such and I'm glad!
On a Graphical note, it comes with about 5 or 6 themes that you can select. Even the glass has about 16 shades. Everyone by now knows about the taskbar of Windows 7 (its broader and flatter.. looking more sober and stylish and simple). I like the new glow to the Windows logo. What some people don't know is that the minimised windows now don't appear as a tab on the taskbar. Instead, they are now small icons. this frees up the space and looks pretty cool. I like it, but not sure how people will react. But its not obstructive as a mouse over the icons reveals a larger thumbnail preview. Interestingly, multiple windows of same application don't show the number of windows in the icon. The preview thumbnail spreads out to accommodate all the windows. Another feature is that if you take the mouse over the preview thumbnail, all windows 'cept that one become transparent. Think of it as a fullscreen preview. Neat. Oh, also Calculator and Paint have been finally updated...
On a downside, the OS tends to lag occasionally, but I assume that will be limited only in the Beta..
Its only been a couple of hours so haven't really noticed too many bugs yet. Still, a month may show a different story.
Day 2
My Foobar has been the only app that has crashed until now. Haven't gotten to use any demanding software like games or PS. Havent had chance to run any synthetic benchmarks either... (down with fever.. which is good, otherwise I'd be at work).
I found some complain areas though... despite giving options in choosing themes, MS acted like a bitch in not offering options to change Sounds or black Aero cursors. This may happen on later date in the final version, lets hope.
For some reason unknown, I could not share My Music folder between multiple media players (iTunes, foobar and wmp). I am still to figure out why.
Windows 7 comes with Direct X 11, so expect some even more detailed gaming by Dec 2009, which isn't unexpected.
I forgot to mention an interesting feature yesterday. If you drag a window towards to top of the screen, it automatically maximizes!
The control panel has been reworked and is un-clustered. But this has been one of the features that has been marketed, so nothing new there.
Frankly, not much to repart today as I havent really pushed her today!
However, enjoy the screenshots...
screenshots![[Image: image.php?img=Screen 1.b25.jpg]](http://server6.theimagehosting.com/image.php?img=Screen 1.b25.jpg)
![[Image: image.php?img=Screen 2.4ad.JPG]](http://server6.theimagehosting.com/image.php?img=Screen 2.4ad.JPG)
![[Image: image.php?img=Screen 3.98e.JPG]](http://server6.theimagehosting.com/image.php?img=Screen 3.98e.JPG)
![[Image: image.php?img=Screen 4.025.jpg]](http://server6.theimagehosting.com/image.php?img=Screen 4.025.jpg)
![[Image: image.php?img=Screen 5.jpg]](http://server6.theimagehosting.com/image.php?img=Screen 5.jpg)
![[Image: image.php?img=Screen 6.2ac.jpg]](http://server6.theimagehosting.com/image.php?img=Screen 6.2ac.jpg)
![[Image: image.php?img=Screen 7.jpg]](http://server6.theimagehosting.com/image.php?img=Screen 7.jpg)
![[Image: image.php?img=Screen 8.JPG]](http://server6.theimagehosting.com/image.php?img=Screen 8.JPG)
Day 3
Installed Crysis Warhead and Left4Dead. I had ripped the two from my Original DVDs and compressed them earlier. Extraction time with 7-Zip was not too different from Vista, but can say it was somewhat faster. Just started compressing a 4 GB file with Ultra compression to 7z format. Time indicator suggests about 40 mins against 50-60 mins in Vista. The compression settings are attached below.
[attachment=2468]
Immediately after bootup, Win 7 took about 400 MB - 450 MB of RAM. This is very less compared to above 600 MB taken up by Vista. This explains the overall quickness of the OS. Just looking at the memory consumption, it becomes clear that Win7 will not be anything like Vista.
I am currently downloading PCMarks (Basic) and some other benchmark utilities and will post those score later on.
About the game performance, under vista Left4Dead ran very smoothly. But it still tended to crash. Under Win7, it did not crash but in between the game became very choppy. I don't have fraps intalled yet, but will do so and post those results.
Crysis warhead ran pretty smoothly at native resolution (1440*900) with mainstream effects and no AA.Under Vista I could not run it @ native resoultion, without lowering the graphics specs. So I guess, the extra RAM has worked charms here. However, the real test under Crysis comes once the snow starts, and I have yet to reach there (I'll be rescuing O'Neil shortly). I'm dl'ing COD4 demo (yeah... i know
) and will test with that too...
i prob wait for some more feedback,. nice thread 
![[Image: Screenshot-3.png]](http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i286/incadudeF/Screenshot-3.png)